Aghi Gesgoudz – Armenian Savoury Cookies

Today I am starting another Mega Blogging Marathon. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would be familiar with the Blogging Marathon group which I am part of. Every year there would be two Mega BM during the months of September and  April. Last year during September we did A-Z BM and this year during April we did Indian States BM. And now it is September again and we are going International. There are not so many rules and regulations for this Mega BM. The only rule is that we chose a country alphabetically and blog about a dish from that country. When thinking of any particular themes I could follow for this BM, cookies crossed my mind. So you will be seeing 26 varieties of cookies from all over the world. I will take you on a virtual tour across the world and serve you with delicious cookies from the countries worldwide. 

For the very first day we will travel to Armenia and savour a delicious savoury cookie from that country. Armenia is located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe in the south Caucasus region of Eurasia. It is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to north,  the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the  Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.  Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD) For this reason, Armenia is often referred to as the “first Christian nation. Source: WIKIPEDIA These cookies are easy to make and tastes so crispy and flaky. It has more oil than butter and very little amount of sugar which enhances the salt taste in the cookies. You can top these cookies with poppy or caraway or any other seeds. And the spice used is mahlab. As I don’t get mahlab here, I subsituted it with cardamom powder. You can also use fennel powder instead.

Recipe Source: Atelierchristine

Makes 24 Cookies

Ingredients:

Flour- 2 cups

Baking Powder-1/2 tbs

Salt-1/2 tsp

Icing Sugar-1 1/2 tbs

Cardamom Powder-1/2 tsp

Butter-1/4 cup, melted

Oil-1/2 cup

Curd-1/2 cup

Poppy Seeds/ Sesame Seeds For Topping

Procedure:

1. In a bowl mix together flour, icing sugar, cardamom powder, salt and baking powder.
2. In another bowl mix together curd, melted butter and oil.
3. Now add the flour to the wet ingredients and mix with a spoon to incorporate.
4. Cover with wrap and set it in fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 160°C.
6. Grease a baking tray with butter.
7. Divide dough into 24 equal portions.
8. Roll each portion into a thick rope an jointhe ends to form a twist.
9. Arrange the twists a little apart. Brush the cookies with milk and top with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.
10. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until nicely golden in colour.
11. Cool on wire rack and store in airtight jar.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 44

 Here are some more recipes of Armenia in my blog:

Eggless Armenian Nazook (click on picture for recipe)

 Armenian Nazook (click on picture for the recipe)

Aghi Gesgoudz – Armenian Savoury Cookies

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Ingredients

  

Ingredients

• Flour- 2 cups
• Baking Powder-1/2 tbs
• Salt-1/2 tsp
• Icing Sugar-1 1/2 tbs
• Cardamom Powder-1/2 tsp
• Butter-1/4 cup melted
• Oil-1/2 cup
• Curd-1/2 cup
• Poppy Seeds for topping

Instructions

 

Procedure

• In a bowl mix together flour, icing sugar, cardamom powder, salt and baking powder.
• In another bowl mix together curd, melted butter and oil.
• Now add the flour to the wet ingredients and mix with a spoon to incorporate.
• Cover with wrap and set it in fridge for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 160°C.
• Grease a baking tray with butter.
• Divide dough into 24 equal portions.
• Roll each portion into a thick rope an jointhe ends to form a twist.
• Arrange the twists a little apart. Brush the cookies with milk and top with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.
• Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until nicely golden in colour.
• Cool on wire rack and store in airtight jar.